A former governor of Cross River, Donald Duke has condemned the purchase of an aircraft for President Bola Tinubu.
Last week, the presidency confirmed the acquisition of a new Airbus A330 to replace the 19-year-old Boeing B737-700 bought under former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
However, whilst speaking on Friday when he featured on Inside Sources, a programme anchored by Laolu Akande on Channels Television, Duke described the decision as “failure of leadership” taking into account, the country’s economic situation.
“There is no glamour in saying your people are going through hard times; it is a failure of your leadership. If I am the head of a family, I want my family to have everything. I don’t want life to be difficult for them,” he said.
“If life is difficult, then I feel I have failed to provide for them or do the things I ought to have done. I would ask him (Tinubu) to see the Nigerian nation as his family. What is good for his family is good for the nation.
“Buying a new aircraft or yacht or living large is a failure. You can’t have kids who are hungry and you are living lavishly, going to parties and wearing the biggest agbada.”
Commenting on the security challenges the the country is grappling with, the former governor asked Tinubu to hold heads of security agencies responsible.
He added that there should be consequences for poor performance of duties by security officers.
“Hold the security agencies responsible for a failure of security. There should be consequences. You cannot sit down and say you are a DPO, commissioner of police or you are GOC and crime is being committed in your domain. Hold them responsible,” Duke said.
Duke also advised the president to “completely decentralise” the judiciary.
“It may require us having maybe three to four times or even 10 times more judges that we have but ensure that whoever is a judge there are consequences for it,” he said.
Conclusively, he implored President Tinubu to address the economic challenges in the country by finding local solutions.
“The IMF or the World Bank would not give you those textbook solutions. It has to be an indigenous solution to our problems,” he said.
Duke was the governor of Cross River from 1999 to 2007, the same period Tinubu governed Lagos.